Civ 6 - The Next Big Thing?

[HorseshoeHermit]

four uniques...
four uniques...
four uniques...
four uniques...

UA and four uniques!

 

[cazaderonus]

There is only one thing i thought was a good idea in civilization revolution 2. The perks per era for civs. I think it would make balancing civs a lot easier. In civ V, a civ with a strong early game is almost always the best choice given how important early game is as you snowball on it for the remaining of the game.

If civs had perks per era, it would balance this. Some would still have stronger early game obviously but as everyone woule still have an early game focused perk, it could mitigate this.

One big thing that could fit civilization would be the microsoft hololens. How amazing would it be to have your civ game take place on your living room table and move stuff with your fingers.

 

[Haig]

There is only one thing i thought was a good idea in civilization revolution 2. The perks per era for civs.

I agree, it was the best thing in CivRev, a game otherwise I find not that great.
They were also historically pretty correct, like medieval times England got bonuses for archers, industrial era perks for industrial revolution, naval power buffs etc.

One cool example is also America, who get insane late era buffs, like 3 x production for each city.

 

[Ikael]

+1 to the "one perk per era" bandwagon

That was definitely one of the best ideas of Civilization Revolution, as it allowed to make games more interesting by shifting the equilibrium of power between civilizations on the fly rather than follow a neat snowball progression. Couple it with Unique Buildings & Units, and we might be into something awesome here

 

[nimling]

Welp, looks like 1UPT will be back. Gag. I'm going to pass on this one.

If anyone is interested in developing a Civ clone, I am very interested.

 

[Haig]

Welp, looks like 1UPT will be back.

Whaaat, has there been new info? Or is it speculation?

 

[Louis XXIV]

Has there even been an announcement that Civ6 is in development?

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

If anyone is interested in developing a Civ clone, I am very interested.

If we got anywhere we'd get a Cease & Desist. Opportunity cost after that sequence is pretty hefty.

Nice "summon rumour mill frenzy" cast, there.

 

[nimling]

Whaaat, has there been new info? Or is it speculation?

Ed Beach likes 1UPT last I heard.

I know C-evo is still kicking around, so if Firaxis is really interested in punishing Civ clones they're not going out of their way.

 

[beetle]

Ed Beach likes 1UPT last I heard.

Are there any mainstream complaints about 1UPT? The people complaining on this board are in the minority, and that is the most vocal objection that I am aware of.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Are there any mainstream complaints about 1UPT? The people complaining on this board are in the minority, and that is the most vocal objection that I am aware of.

Considering people here are the most fanatics, no matter the iteration (civ5 has great success in those forums too, and criticism is oftenly taken as insult), I would consider that those forums aren't representative of less interested judgements.

Therefore, I would say that "mainstream" has more problems with 1UPT, considering the validity of some arguments against 1UPT here.

However it's true that it may not be its n°1 problem, the main problem is that Civ5 is not fun, and it's hardly 1UPT exclusive fault.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I would think the exact opposite - I would say that mainstream players have less objections to 1UPT because it made the game much more casual, it made warfare a breeze and it took a few tactical aspects out of the game while adding a few new ones.

If anything the hardcore Civ audience that has been there since its inception would be complaining. Most people that play Civ V today probably haven't even played Civ IV..

But even these hardcore fans (mostly) appreciate the new 1UPT. Now this is just my opinion and it'll probably be critically received, but I think hating on 1UPT for no obvious reason is just being a contrarian for the sake of it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

But even these hardcore fans (mostly) appreciate the new 1UPT. Now this is just my opinion and it'll probably be critically received, but I think hating on 1UPT for no obvious reason is just being a contrarian for the sake of it.

Okay, let's be contrarian for a Reason, or set of them.

1UPT Pros and Cons: Pros
1. The interaction of ranged, melee, mobile, anti-mobile, siege units adds a real tactical component to combat, especially compared to the My Huge Stack Versus Your Huge Stack aspect of previous Civ games.
2. Use of Map Terrain becomes a real part of combat: high ground for your archers or siege engines, rough terrain to impede enemy fast troops - picking the battlefield became part of Civ combat for nearly the first time.
3. The actions of certain Unique Units became really, really obvious in combat. Like, the first time you had a unit pincushioned by a Longbowman at Extreme Range, or lost an archer to a Jaguar Knight who didn't have to slow down when charging through the jungle. The use and avoidance of Special/Unique Units became an important part of your combat tactics - if you wanted to win consistently.

1UPT Pros and Cons: Cons
1. The 'tactical' distances and time scales are completely out of scale with the rest of the game. Battles can take centuries (in the early game) to finish, archers can shoot at a barbarian Brute for 80 years without killing him, and slingers can throw a stone from one side of a 500,000-population city to the other.
2. 'Armies' spread over entire provinces, and you can literally line your border with a wall of troops - which, historically, would have been really useful to the Roman Empire or France in 1940, but in fact makes the 'scale' of armies versus space also completely wrong.
3. Because of the area/distance problem, it is very difficult to move large numbers of units - both for a human player and even more for the AI. Bottlenecks abound on every map, which would add to the tactical nature of combat, except that they are Artificial, caused by the stacking prohibitions that get more cumbersome the larger the armies get later in the game.
4. Because the ranges are so out of scale, they become Game Changing: get a longer-ranged unit, like Artillery or Battleships, and you can with impunity destroy any opposing unit or city - combat becomes exclusively one-sided massacres, which gets dull fast.

Summarizing, the tactical interactions need to be kept - they make combat much, much more interesting than it has ever been before in Civ games, but the out of scale range and time scales for 'battles' need to be changed. I still think a 'tactical display', pop-up or map is the answer, in which changes in 'tactical' terrain could be shown and the entire battle played out within a single (minimum one year long) turn, but I welcome any solution that keeps a pike-archer combination more deadly against unsupported Knights while not requiring half of the 100 Year's War to fight a single battle and most of Normandy to provide space for two small armies!

 

[Sir Prizing]

Okay, let's be contrarian for a Reason, or set of them.

~snip~
Summarizing, the tactical interactions need to be kept - they make combat much, much more interesting than it has ever been before in Civ games, but the out of scale range and time scales for 'battles' need to be changed. I still think a 'tactical display', pop-up or map is the answer, in which changes in 'tactical' terrain could be shown and the entire battle played out within a single (minimum one year long) turn, but I welcome any solution that keeps a pike-archer combination more deadly against unsupported Knights while not requiring half of the 100 Year's War to fight a single battle and most of Normandy to provide space for two small armies!

An idea I've had is limited stacking of only one of each different class of units. For example, you could stack an archer and a pike-man, but not a pike-man and a swordsman. I think that would go towards condensing armies a good bit without having large stacks of doom or what ever. (Only having played Civ V, I don't have direct experience with them, but I've heard some about them, of course).

 

[criZp]

Repositioning of units in a group gotta be easier, and moving groups has to be faster.

Something fun to do when done exploring and settling, and when not at war (ie. make commerce fun)

some more things:

Make food and tiles tradable. Trade of resources can only be done with cargo ships/caravans/railroads.

Can't buy tiles with gold, different tiles have a different cultural cost of aquiring. Player can decide what tile to take. Once all tiles around a city are taken, cultural buildings gain extra yield.

Multiple engineers can work the same tile.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

An idea I've had is limited stacking of only one of each different class of units. For example, you could stack an archer and a pike-man, but not a pike-man and a swordsman. I think that would go towards condensing armies a good bit without having large stacks of doom or what ever. (Only having played Civ V, I don't have direct experience with them, but I've heard some about them, of course).

Said it before, I'll keep saying it: The solution to the Stacking Problem in Civilization Games is:
SUPPLY
SUPPLY
SUPPLY

In that you can only stack as many units in a tile/hex/square as you can Feed there.

Tha limitation is based on the type of tile AND the technology available to get supplies to them.

Early in the game, it would be severely limited: on tundra or ice/snow tiles, I suggest only Scouts could be supported at all - any other unit trying to cross would take damage the way Carthaginian units stopping on a Mountain tile do now. In 'regular' tiles you might only be able to 'supply' 2 - 3 units.

But if you can maintain a Supply Line to a friendly city (and early on, that would require a river or coastal 'connection', or a very, very, very short road) you can supply as many units as there are Population points in the city.

Later, technology would allow you to build and stock 'depots' to supply armies, and railroads, airports, modern highways, and other 'infrastructure' that increase the number of units/tile that can function.

BUT it's never unlimited, and the most modern army even in an era of extensive highways and railroads can be hamstrung by Supply: see the Germans in Russia in 1941-42, or everybody trying to fight in desert or jungle environments anytime anywhere.

This mechanism would simultaneously solve the Stacking Problem, would allow greater stacking as the game progresses so the later massive numbers of units would continue to take up the same amount of map space, and would effectively penalize some of the OP units now in the game: modern Artillery and Bombers both require immense amounts of supply (ammunition, fuel and bombs by the Tons) to be effective: institute supply rules and it will no longer be possible to simply pound cities into submission while out of range - you'll need extensive supply preparation to allow your 'long range' units to operate...

Artificial limitations by number or 'class' of units are not necessary: you should be able to stack an entire army of Legions if you so desire - and watch them disintegrate if you try to stack them in a desert tile without Supply while fighting a bunch of Persian horse archers (look up Crassus and his legions for the history behind That example!).

 

[duckstab]

Okay, let's be contrarian for a Reason, or set of them.

1UPT Pros and Cons: Pros
1. The interaction of ranged, melee, mobile, anti-mobile, siege units adds a real tactical component to combat, especially compared to the My Huge Stack Versus Your Huge Stack aspect of previous Civ games.
2. Use of Map Terrain becomes a real part of combat: high ground for your archers or siege engines, rough terrain to impede enemy fast troops - picking the battlefield became part of Civ combat for nearly the first time.
3. The actions of certain Unique Units became really, really obvious in combat. Like, the first time you had a unit pincushioned by a Longbowman at Extreme Range, or lost an archer to a Jaguar Knight who didn't have to slow down when charging through the jungle. The use and avoidance of Special/Unique Units became an important part of your combat tactics - if you wanted to win consistently.

1UPT Pros and Cons: Cons
1. The 'tactical' distances and time scales are completely out of scale with the rest of the game. Battles can take centuries (in the early game) to finish, archers can shoot at a barbarian Brute for 80 years without killing him, and slingers can throw a stone from one side of a 500,000-population city to the other.
2. 'Armies' spread over entire provinces, and you can literally line your border with a wall of troops - which, historically, would have been really useful to the Roman Empire or France in 1940, but in fact makes the 'scale' of armies versus space also completely wrong.
3. Because of the area/distance problem, it is very difficult to move large numbers of units - both for a human player and even more for the AI. Bottlenecks abound on every map, which would add to the tactical nature of combat, except that they are Artificial, caused by the stacking prohibitions that get more cumbersome the larger the armies get later in the game.
4. Because the ranges are so out of scale, they become Game Changing: get a longer-ranged unit, like Artillery or Battleships, and you can with impunity destroy any opposing unit or city - combat becomes exclusively one-sided massacres, which gets dull fast.

Summarizing, the tactical interactions need to be kept - they make combat much, much more interesting than it has ever been before in Civ games, but the out of scale range and time scales for 'battles' need to be changed. I still think a 'tactical display', pop-up or map is the answer, in which changes in 'tactical' terrain could be shown and the entire battle played out within a single (minimum one year long) turn, but I welcome any solution that keeps a pike-archer combination more deadly against unsupported Knights while not requiring half of the 100 Year's War to fight a single battle and most of Normandy to provide space for two small armies!

I absolutely agree with the idea of having separate strategic and tactical views.

However, I have one major caveat. Fundamentally, the problem with 1UPT in the Civ series is that it's much harder to program a tactical AI for 1UPT on a completely random map. This is why turn-based tactical wargames are typically either scenario-based or have battles which are fought on one of a relatively small number of static maps chosen at random. Firaxis would have to make a major investment in both the tactical AI and the development of enough interesting tactical situations that it didn't become predictable. If I see the same tactical map over and over and know how the AI is going to play each particular battlefield, it'll get boring quickly.

But if well done, this system would have all the pros of the current system with none of the cons. You could still have 1UPT on the tactical level map but go back to stack-based movement on the strategic map. This would greatly reduce the micromanagement involved during the parts of the game when you're not actively engaged in combat. Frankly, I still get sick of having to juggle units back and forth even in peacetime.

 

[beetle]

The 'tactical' distances and time scales are completely out of scale with the rest of the game. Battles can take centuries (in the early game) to finish, archers can shoot at a barbarian Brute for 80 years without killing him, and slingers can throw a stone from one side of a 500,000-population city to the other.

I have made my peace with the tactical distances being out of scale with the rest of the game by mental gymnastics about combat being an abstraction. That willful suspension of disbelief also address archers having longer range weapons than machine guns, and rifles being melee.

But you make an excellent point that the time scale problems are even worse!

The combat mechanics all work together well enough. The “turn-based” focus is good, but turns representing variable year length is problematic. I like the battle zoom idea people have suggested, and that certainly seems like it will help these sort of inconsistencies.

 

[criZp]

Attacking/taking a city could give less warmonger penalty based on the difference in territory that the parts have (if someone have been grabbing lots of land it should be more acceptible to take a share from them). It could also matter how close that attacked city is to the attacker's and the defender's capital, and if it is on the same landmass as the attacker but not the defender.

Base science per pop down, science from buildings up -> promotes infrastructure building over cancerous city number growth.

Allowing cities to build multiple buildings of the same type, ex. first factory at 10 pop, next at 20 etc.

 

[MIS]

In Stellaris, there's a card based system. I think it would be good for Civ. For example, you don't pump science into "Archery" to get archers, you can pump into one of several buckets e.g. food, production, more science, military, culture, relegion, happiness or gold, and then you get a choice of three cards that would help with more of that. E.g. if I pump into military, my first three cards may be:

a) Archers
b) Warriors
c) Barracks

etc. This would mean more replayability. My only concern is that the programmers can't balance properly, so there might be a lot of luck on which cards come out.

I would also like to be able to pick which tile my border grows on. It's a strategic choice based on needs at the time - wouldn't it add to the game?